And since digitally extending the marketplace seemed one of the logical steps to take, they just went with it.

Now we all know how that worked out!!

In a very short amount of time, the E-commerce industry has taken the world by horns and completely transformed the way people shop. In fact, it’s estimated that by 2021 there would be around 2.14 billion online shoppers Worldwide.

These enticing figures alone would get businessmen clamoring to get their own piece of the e-commerce pie. One of the most crucial decisions that you would need to make while setting up your e-commerce business is choosing the right e-commerce platform, as it will pretty much handle all the major functions such as such as showcasing your product, managing the customer, to handling the payments and list can go on…..

In this article, we’re going to do a comparative analysis on two of the most popular e-commerce platforms which are Magento & Shopify and we going to assign points to whichever platform that gets the upper hand in the e-commerce functionalities to be discussed.

Let’s start off with Money matters

Although Magento comes free of cost it offers two editions – the Enterprise edition and the Community edition. In order to make use of the Enterprise edition, you will have to pay a certain amount.

However, the Community edition is absolutely free and accessible to anyone who wishes to start an e-commerce website without shelling out money. Not only that, as Magento is an open source platform, the community forum and the integrated themes are available for free.

Shopify also has a free trial version, but, the other additional offerings from the platform come at a cost. The price ranges from 29 dollars/month to 299/month. It depends on the features or functionalities that are up for offer – Upload volume, Shop set-up, Blogs, Social Media support, etc.

Hence, even though Shopify is a platform that can only be used after payment, it can useful for the individual who is more concerned with the end product and hence, is up for initial investments plus the paid apps are really good.

Even though Shopify might prove to be an immensely useful platform, Magento fares much better as compared to it as far as cost is concerned.

So, the score is:

1. Service Provided

Since Magento is a free open source platform and the services provided are also user-friendly and customizable hence, when it comes to extra services as such, there is not much to look for.

Owing to the cost-free nature of the platform, a user will not find any extra on-platform services which can help them in getting over glitches, tracking bugs and dealing with technical difficulties.

Therefore, you might have to rely on a dedicated developer and online discussion threads in order to find the answers to your problems on Magento.

On the other hand, even though Shopify is a paid platform, there are customer support services, as well as support groups which can help you in finding perfect solutions to specific problems. They even have an e-commerce University, which offers good learning ground for individuals who want to learn e-commerce website creation and management.

In this case, we feel that Shopify has an edge. So, the score is:

2. Managing Security & Hosting

Both these platforms offer great security features for their users. Shopify offers hosting options during sign-up, but, Magento does not have that feature. Hence, in order to gain the most out of your hosting experience on Magento, you may have to dish out a few coffers.

Furthermore, Hosting in Shopify is more user-friendly in comparison to Magento, owing to the worldwide CDN which is an integral part of its hosting network. This feature makes hosting on Shopify much faster and more convenient than platforms like Magento.

In this segment, Shopify definitely scores over Magento, so it’s now:

3. Creating User Experience

One of the most important factors that defines a great e-commerce website is the user experience that it provides to its users. Both Magento and Shopify offer decent levels of user experience.

Magento offers several extensions, add-ons, applications, whereas Shopify offers simple, yet easy to use features and functionalities. Some may find Magento a bit cumbersome when it comes to utilizing all the functionalities a.

However, the dashboard of Magento is the more responsive of the two. In Shopify, integration with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is much smoother than in Magento. Magento also offers built-in features like, upsells and cross-sells, related products, and so on.

For this segment, Magento edges past Shopify by a narrow margin, so back to level score for now, i.e;

4. Marketing capabilities

Magento provides powerful SEO features like SEO friendly URLs and Meta info, whereas, Shopify provides just the essentials. While SEO set-up in Shopify is much simpler, the SEO features in Magento are much more customizable as compared with those on Shopify.

You can easily integrate your website with social media channels in the case of Shopify, but it is more difficult with Magento. The Google shopping API is available on both the platforms, but, the development of the same is simpler when using Shopify.

Magento comes in with several built-in marketing options like, promotional pricing, flexible coupons, related products, free shipping, product bundling. On the other hand, in a case of Shopify, you have to depend on the App store for the same.

In this segment, Magento edges past Shopify, so now, it is at an advantage.

5. Reporting and Analytics

We are all familiar with Big Data and its numerous applications in improving the revenue stream as well as user experience. Both these platforms offer loads of data to play around with, but representation in the case of Shopify is more simple and easier to understand. On the other hand, statistics are easily viewed in the dashboard in the case of Magento which gives it an edge.

But the bottom line when it comes to reporting and analytics lies how simple a complex data can be portrayed. Due to the user friend and simple formats of Shopify platform, we’ll have to give this score to Shopify.

Therefore the final scoring is as follows:

Conclusion:

There you have it folks our tournament of the best e-commerce platforms ended in a draw from which the main conclusion that can be derived is that both Shopify and Magento have their own weaknesses as well as strengths.

Magento implementation is easy on the pocket but for its maintenance and customization, you would need to hire a dedicated Magento developer. On the other hand Shopify comes in with a price tag but all it’ apps hardly required any effort from your end and it is super user-friendly.

Therefore our advice to you is research your product thoroughly and plan out the entire customer marketing life cycle for your business before selecting the platform suitable to your business needs.

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